Narrated D&D Story: The Single Best Use Of The Spell 'Darkness' I Have Ever Seen 

If you were the DM would you have allowed it? How important is the “rule of cool” at your table?

Paladin: “damn those fire balls, he knows i’m in this sphere of darkness” Also paladin: “but what if......I wasn’t in the sphere of darkness” Jojo level thinking right there.

If I was ever running a game, the "rule of cool" would be applicable, but you gotta justify every little thing you do.

I am looking forward to casting Darkness with my Warlock. Devil's sight will be ... awesome.

How important is rule of cool? It took a decade for me to have a character survive a campaign. And my fellow raised the point that character's last words were frequently, "Screw it - rule of cool!"

"Ok, the dragon is too big for it to be pulled towards me with thorn whip. But can I pull me towards it with it?"

This was by far a smart plan, and thankfully the dice gods deemed it so. I probably wouldn't have let them cast bardic inspiration on themselves.

my personal best use of darkness was against basilisks and hags, (the ones that can insta kill you if they look at you while you are feared). we were all averting our gaze to prevent the effects and had disadvantage anyway, my thought was literally, "lets level the playing field" covered us all in darkness, no petrification gaze/death glare for them

Story starts at 1:30

The casting of darkness was actually legitimate according to the 5th edition rules as written: "If the point you choose is on an object you are holding or one that isn't being worn or carried, the darkness emanates from the object and moves with it." - Player's Handbook, page 230. So by casting it on the dagger and then sticking the dagger into an enemy who is moving around is a legitimate use of the darkness spell as per the rules as written. Casting darkness on an item on you are wearing is still casting it on an item to which one can still hold onto making this application legitimate as well since holding is not more specifically defined under the spell description. This means the definition of what it means to hold an item is the default found in the definition which is as follows: hold /hōld/ verb gerund or present participle: holding 1. grasp, carry, or support with one's hands. All one has to to do is grasp onto or support an item like a breastplate and they are now considered to be holding onto their own breastplate satisfying the requirement of the darkness spell. However, the paladin would not be able to cast darkness on the generals armor under 5th edition rules, earlier editions yes. So as long as the paladin is casting darkness on their own armor, which is what is sounds like to me (though it is not entirely clear in the story) since the paladin can fight in darkness without penalty, did so before, and darkness does provide an additional defense, then what was done is legitimate. Bardic inspiration on the other hand, did break the rules as written since it only applies to others and specifically excludes being applicable to the bard themselves. So in the end, this story is not far off of what it is legitimately possible within the game and demonstrates creative thinking within the rules and mechanics of the game more so then the "rule of cool" which only bent bardic inspiration which might not have even been necessary.

I always interpreted the "isn't being worn or carried" as meaning "by someone else".... especially since, immediately before that is says "an object you are holding" is a valid target, even though if you're holding it, it's being carried.... Also, the Bardic Inspiration, while technically not allowed, doesn't really change the outcome by much, so I would have allowed it for the drama

I DM'd a campaign recently where the party was traveling through a desert before they got ambushed by a pair of Giant Lizards. One charged towards the party, while the other latched onto the Hexblade Warlock that had tried to intercept it. The one charging the party went down in a few rounds, but that left the Warlock on his own. Failing a Strength check to unlatch the lizard's jaws from around his arm, he cast Tomb of Levistus to encase himself in ice - which had the added bonus of freezing the lizard's head inside a block of ice. I had the lizard roll a check to see if it could manage to pull itself free, but gave it disadvantage because it was still latched onto the warlock's arm inside the Tomb, and since lizards are cold-blooded, the ice-cold temperatures were already slowing it down. It failed, and proceeded to slowly suffocate inside the Tomb of Levistus, helpless to escape, as the Warlock silently celebrated.

Sup my friend, I am running decent into avernus today, wish me luck

Everybody's talking about how they wouldn't allow the bardic inspiration. But, music, or any other performance, can inspire the one doing it just as much as the audience. The best performers are the ones who embody the song they're singing or put themselves in the mindset of the role they're playing/referencing. I'd totally allow it if I were DMing.

For the bardic inspiration self casting, they may have been going on Critical Role rules cuz Scanlan used it on himself while fighting the white dragon. Super clever move overall.

My favorite thing to do is be creative with my spells. Plant growth a seed trown into armor, stone shape an oven, etc.

BBEG was in the center of the room, kinda close to us and surrounded by his guards... I'm also second in initiative. The player that's first casts Darkness to get his sneak attack, even though it meant blinding the party. It would also blind the guards and give us a turn to prepare. (They were also working against us, but didn't know it at the time) My turn is up... and I'm a human sorcerer that can't see anything. However, I did take Keen Mind. I verified with the DM that I didn't know if anyone had moved, but I knew what the layout of the room was and could recall where everyone was standing... So I resulted to the classic, Fireball. I killed the guards outright and heavily tilted the fight in our favor using Keen Mind in the first round! Twas dope.

I would've allowed the Darkness, but wouldn't have allowed the Bardic Inspiration personally.

I was DMing and everyone but a single member of the party had night vision. Once whilst in the dark they were attacked by an order of blind monks. The mage that didn’t have night vision cast darkness because he thought the monks had night vision. Now everyone was blind, but the blind monks didn’t get a penalty. They were saved when the party Gunslinger set off a firecracker to deafen everyone in the tunnel. One short rest later the darkness had lifted and the mage got another earful of loud noises.

I've played as a warlock with devils site. Casting darkness on my character has been a thoroughly critical aspect of my characters. It's soooo good.

My party and I were meeting with a tribe of bandits in one session. We knew things could go poorly if we weren't careful, so I walked into the meeting prepared to throw down. Specifically, I held a sixth level spell as a reaction while our Face Player and the Bandit Boss discussed terms. Some bad rolls happened, and my reaction spell was triggered when a mob of bandits charged us. Before they could fully close the distance, I cast Blade Wall in a semicircle arrangement, horns out like a big cup. A lot of bandits got caught up in their charge and cut to pieces, and anything that made it though the wall had to then deal with our fighter and rogue, who mopped things up nicely

Paladin warlock bard....not a combo the jedi ever told me about

I played a game of Waterdeep and my character was a bugbear bard. We we at the point where we needed/ were tricked into giving a young bronze dragon a "gift" from drow pirates. It was an orb that could communicate and scry on the young dragon. Me and my party didn't trust the drows ( they were openly showing their evil sides) so while the rest of the party was wondering how to stop them from getting in contact with the dragon, I realized that I myself was a bard. I convinced the rest of the party to give the orb to the young dragon and while we were sailing away, I performed for everyone, while casting dispel magic on the orb. For those who don't know, a bard can cast spells with their instruments, so I performed and casted a spell at the same time. Not even my teammates knew until 4 sessions afterwards.

I would allow it to happen as a DM, for it is some clever tactic. It doesn't matter what spell you use, but how you use it. I was playing a Tiefling Sorcerer who was travelling with his friends as adventurers, so he could make a name for himself. The party consisted of me, An orc barbarian, two elves - ranger and a fighter with a bow, and a human rogue who couldn't make it, but DM gave him a story reasons for his disappearance, related to his background. We were looking for thieves guild in the town sewers, because someone stole from us a book we were meant to deliver. On our way we almost died to gelatinous cubes but DM Deus-ex Machina us from TPK. As a punishment, we got captured by the thieves, as we were in no shape to fight. Our rogue found us, but rather than break us free, we decided to use an element of surprise and have him look aorund the place for our weapons. After a nice long rest in the cage, we were chained up to be brought to the bandits leader to decide our fate. I checked to see if the chains locking us up were somehow enchanted. They weren't. with my team not being able to do anything, I started to stack odds in our favor. First I used mage hand to pick pocket keys to the chains from a guard, using thaumaturgy to make a loud cough, that would cover the sound of falling keys. Then, using my tail i picked them up and passed them to my teammates, who one by one, unlocked the chains, but to not cause suspicion, kept them on. When we reached the bandit's leader, he decided to have us fight his giant pet, only for our Rogue to open the cage first, letting the angry animal roam free and cause panic, as we drop our chains, get our weapons and proper fight ensues. We won and used the same chains to lock up the bandit leader for questioning later.

This story remided me of the time I was playing in a Campaign as a Kumiho (Korean Nine-Tailed Fox) (Homebrew: Beast Variant Human) Monk. My Character's Backstory is just that she is a false Kumiho artificially made due to fascination with the mystic race. She is an amnesiac human that has bodily alterations (actually modified to bear physical traits of a Kumiho) and is infused with forest gnome blood. The forest gnome blood infusion is important as it has given my character darkvision, mental cunning, and the ability to cast the Minor Illusion Cantrip. Now, for the fun moment I had with the Minor Illusion Cantrip: Two of our Party Memebers were being pursued by a monster hunting guild. The two Party Members are a bugbear barbarian and me (for being such a foreign creature that technically got "isekai'd" into the world). My character and my barbarian comrade discovered during our run that our pursuers were going to pincer flank us (since we were running in a tunnel system). I decided that I cast Minor Illusion onto an archway where anyone who looked at it sees as if me and the barbarian are on the other side of it. The barbarian comrade picked me up and climbed up a wall to hide clinging to the ceiling. The two groups of pursuers pretty much the illusion I placed on an archway and each group is on one side of that archway. Both pursuer groups had explosive and incendiary weapons and just unloaded at the illusion which, of course, ended up in them shooting each other while the barbarian makes stregth checks to not fall with me from the ceiling. The literal fire fight lasted for just 18 seconds (3 turns) and when me and the barbarian finally went down, we were just met with the sight of singed gore and the sound of screams of those dismembered and still burning alive. Luckily the barbarian was neutral in alignment and I was chaotic neutral in alignment and we were both experienced killers so no trauma from the experience. XD Yes, I was technically playing as SCP-953. XD

Man that good plan right there and the dice is infavour too

One time my bard made a plank over colapsing bridge with Leomund's Hut. He created hut underneth the broken bridge and didn't let anyone inside. After that we nicknamed spell Leomund's Plank.

Interesting way I used a spell, huh? I got one. This was with a D&D 5e game that my group's been running for the last 3 years. This happened before the 2 year in-game timeskip that we used to switch to FantasyCraft. Cast is me (Silver Dragonborn Paladin/Warlock), a Tiefling Bard, a Human Fighter/Barbarian, and a Half-Elf Cleric. I should also note that the Tiefling and the Half-Elf are both DMPCs; The Tiefling, because that's what the DM wanted to actually play, and the Half-Elf because we needed a dedicated healer. Our party was attempting to liberate the kingdom that our Fighter hailed from. We had discovered that he was the crown prince of this kingdom, long thought lost after the Vampire who usurped the throne murdered his parents. Naturally, being non-native to this town, there was heavy suspicion on our group. While sneaking through the town to begin our invasion of the castle, I failed my stealth check, and was caught by the guards. In an attempt to escape non-violently, I aimed an Eldritch Blast at the ground, and used the Grasp of Hadar augment to pull the dirt and debris, flinging it into the air to make an improvised smokescreen.

BRILLIANT! We need more creative solutions like the warlock/paladin/bard had. I really want to make a creative combat character for d&d, but I haven't come up with many ideas on my own. This video was an excellent idea generator.

Stabbing someone while they sleep, not very Paladin like. Also props to the DM for running it well as far as I can tell.

I play a half orc way of the shadow monk/wizard. I use darkness regularly as a reverse flashbang when a speedy retreat is necessary

Words of support.

On lunch break watchimg this

I am a recent D&D player and have only had 4h into my first campaign, so it's bound to not be that impressive, however, my best use of a spell is using Mage Hand. We had only barely dealt with our last battle and gotten our payment from the job, when the Governor's assistant waltzed into the tabern furious demanding we finish the job. We were hired to find out why the mushroom people of the forest had stopped trading with the city and started attacking and kidnapping people even though they had always been peaceful and deal with it. We ended up fighting a painting in the middle of the mushroom people's village that was controlling them and our Blood Hunter who's our tank had just barely survived. When we destroyed it, the mushroom people came back to their senses. This bowl haired sh*t head wanted us to go back to the forest without getting paid because somehow, another child went missing and he just decided that the 2 cases had to be connected. In the midst of this he insulted my fine just awoken arcane trickster Rogue. Now now that just couldn't be so, after I persuaded him to pay us again for the job, he was waltzing out furiously. I rolled reaction, got a 17, my DM was a bit nervous thinking I was about to kill someone. I used Mage Hand to unfasten his belt and was successful on my Sleight of Hand roll. So, has the Governor's assistant was leaving the tabern furious, he uses both hands to open the Tabern's doors. As he does this, with both hands holding the doors open and everyone both in the Tabern and outside on the street could clearly see him, his pants drop to his feet revealing his undies. In amidst a mix of fury and embarassment, he clumsly pulls up his pants almost stumbling while running across town, everyone laughing at him. As a supposedly cleptomaniac and psycopathic rogue I must say, that visage was a priceless relic in itself ;-)

My sister (warlock) likes to use darkness in crossbow bolts before shooting them to her enemies, once she used it on herself to fight 3 gnolls (she killed them all)

Your question was would I allow? I just allow anything that can happen. If the players are capable of doing it, it'll be allowed to happen so long as the game can go on. Like, just two days ago, my party cleared a dungeon and used the respawning monster level to grind to level 20 then use their new abilities to teleport and kill the arc's final boss. Two more arcs to go, but that depends on how they finish the war arc they just started.

My friends and I would allow this but we play our game with this in mind: if the heroes can do it, co can the bad guys. Be careful what you unleash!

Never thought I’d like podcasts, til I met this channel.

That darkness and fiend sight combo is absolutely vicious, I would summon in my pact weapon and cast Darkness on it then charge the enemy, or keep it at a certain spot and constantly duck in and out, jumping in if someone closes to melee with me, staying outside if someone is inside and blast them, the only person who would have advantage in that zone would be me.

I can't wait to use darkness as effectively as this guy.

Darkness makes for a perfect spell if your Wizard or other squishy guy has True Sight, or, in this case, Devil's Sight. Not being able to see a target means you can't cast targeted spells on them, though AoE's will still work (but Energy Resistance/Absorption could help with those). Try casting Darkness on the arrow of your party's archer, then have them fire that arrow where you need to block LoS. It'll create perfect concealment over the area it lands.

That was absolutely dope AF hands down

Well, attaching Darkness to an object is part of canon for the forgotten realms, even if it's not RAW. So... I guess it's good? The darkness didn't have to move for the plan to work, anyway. Well, mostly.

I didn't know that you could cast Darkness on an object! duuuude, there's some fun stuff you could do with that! also, due to Tasha's, there's the new feat that let's you grab an Invocation from the Warlock. grab Devil's Sight and then you can REALLY have some fun! no one will be able to stop the unstoppable force that is the Darkness pebble!

Very Epic

Had a 3.5 rogue/cleric that would cast silence on herself and start fights with a charging great sword sneak attack. Turning annoying spells into WTF moments is fantastic. Silence on arrows is fun, too. Not sure it's allowed in 5e, but always remember, the rulebooks are guidelines. Do what you gotta do to have fun with your friends and family. That's sounds bad....

The fight against the kobold mob in tomb of anhiliation was meant to be a joke at current level (8-9) but still sharing because it was a great moment. Basically my druid casts insect plague and dm is willing to let me flavor the spell however i want. I choose coconut crabs and the end result is a room covered in kobold blood and guts. One survived because he was able to escape due to being at the edge but everyone else? Yeah, not so much....

Pathfinder campaign: The spell mount (1st level) lets you summon a light horse within 30 ft. So you summon the mount 20 ft in the air above your target. That translates to 4d6 damage for a level 1 spell. Although, they get a reflex save to dodge.

I don't really have much in the way of creative spell usage stories. The only cases I can think of, really are me taking advantage of Rope Trick a couple times. Once to provide air supply when we would otherwise have suffocated from smoke inhalation, and the other to save the party from falling to our death (it's not *my* fault the wizard didn't have Feather Fall prepared)

Scott Lynch is literally my favorite author the gentleman bastard trilogy is brilliant the world building in those novels is spot on really makes you feel like you're there. What's nice about the audio books is that they're all narrated by the author ❤️ It's a fucking great recommendation for anyone who wants notes on world building 🔥🔥🔥🤌

My favorite method of using Darkness is when playing a Warlock. Get Darkness, get ability to see through Darkness, get a method of flying. With these powers combined with a buffed Eldritch Blast, you can create the almighty sniper's nest, and you the almighty sniper.

One of the best uses of a spell my DM had ever done to our party. It was all for the meme. Or rather large party of 6 to 8 adventures on any given night we're reaching the end of our adventure going into the evil artificers tower. We were playing 3.5. As the party walks into a room full of greater darkness, a much higher level version of the darkness spell, I decided to have my arch mage wizard cast greater missile storm at the darkness. Laughing and smiling the entire party giggled at me magic missilling the darkness. Then my DM laughed. As the magic missiles made contact destroying the living spell greater darkness and dissipating the magic. Revealing an epic room sizes wall of mirror of opposition. Dumbfounded our party now stood with an exact duplicate of our party to fight against us and no way out of the room. This was an epic troll from the DM and allowed us to practice fighting against ourselves in an oddly brief battle. Almost as a badge of honor, my arch mage who still had 3.0 fate spinner class and a habit of writing contingencies for everything was elected as the most dangerous player to be left alive. My other party members took him out in a single turn. I shall now always think twice before magic misselling the darkness.

Now that is some quality vengeance!

As a forever DM, I rule that if a magic item is sentient then it can be the source of a spell that it casts itself. If you want to gain a sentient magic item, you can find one of many legendary artificers that are in key areas and pay 250,000gp to get it. My world is before the cataclysmic collapse that turns the existing areas into ruins that hide magic items and random abundance of gold.

Casting Grease at the top of a stairwell so enemies coming down the stairs after us would fall prone at the bottom, and be subject to a flurry of melee attacks.

This is giving me ideas for my own paladin/warlock.

4:10 Right! I’m having a bit of trouble putting a mental image of that in me mind, is like the hilt of the knife just a silhouette of itself cause the blade would still be in the guy and unseen either way. Hmmmm, YIRBEL LIVES!

Casting darkness on an object you are holding is totally fair game RAW. Playing a Satyr college of swords pact blade warlock in an upcoming game looking forward to it.

I once used the “light“ cantrip on a deck of cards to create multiple glowing cards that would allow the rest of my party to see in the dark using the cards: the DM gave me inspiration. I was happy.

Considering this was the final session, half the party died, and the paladin was clever with his encounter with the BBEG (whom he had a history with), yes I would allow this.

That Paladin/Warlock just solo'd the final boss. Pretty epic, but if I was another person at the table watching him go off on his own to solo the boss, I'd be a bit disappointed it wasn't a team effort.

I once convinced a temple guard that he was being called upon by his God with the message spell so we could sneak by. A week later found out the poor fucker was put in the stocks for abandoning his post.

In my current campaign, considering the season of Halloween, we are on a ship as pirates. I happen to be able to cast mage hand at will as the simple cook. I do my level best to make everyone think the ship is haunted by moving lanterns and knocking over small objects, or making thumps.

I played a game that had guns in it (muskets that took a full turn to reload so I didn’t use it much). We got shot at and took cover. Looking in the direction the shot came from we saw nothing. I took my musket, cast light on a bullet, and shot in the general direction. Thanks to the light we managed to locate our attacker.

You're wrong; no rule was broken as described. The spell allows you to cast it on a point in space or a point on an object. You misread the second paragraph: "If the point you choose is on an object you are holding or one that isn't being worn or carried, the darkness emanates from the object and moves with it." This is an "if 1 or if not 2" statement and remains true as long as one of the conditions is met. Meaning, if you're holding the object, you can cast darkness on it. Alternatively, if it's an object within range that isn't being worn nor carried, you can also cast darkness on it. Your pally is "holding" the knife when he casts darkness (so he needs a hand free unless he has war caster, which he does). As the DM, you also get to define "holding" more liberally than I do. There is no requirement for him to retain a hold on said knife. You might have broken a rule with that bardic inspiration, though. Under official rules, Bardic inspiration can't be granted to oneself, but there might be a house rule or non-official subclass allowing it that I'm not aware of.

That was amazing! I would allow it and if need to be justified then I'd allow him to make a charisma check to bend the rule of the spell.. to craft the spell of you will. Magic should be a little flexible or a lot depending on the creative mind behind it

That is a good combo.

The rule at my table is this "if you can convince me, it can happen." I've expanded the magic system to be more flexible than it currently is and there's some tweaks to other stuff I've made as well. Overall I'd probably let all of this happen without much hesitation. It was definitely creative play and I love it

I got a time I used a spell! Story time: Playing a long standing campaign of Vampire the Masquerade with my friends. Custom story that changes lore up a bit but all powers and abilities are standard. For those that are unaware, a lot of powers in the World of Darkness are intentionally vague, thus allowing you to use your imagination in their use. The campaign has been going on for the better part of 5 years, starting in High School. Our characters starting out at a mediocre power level in the time of Leonidas in ancient Greece and we over time became quite powerful overcoming other vampires seeking to usurp us, hunters seeking to kill us, mages seeking to use us, an the werewolves somewhere in the middle. We even managed to change history by brokering a peace between Athens and Sparta. Being immortal vampires we all got into the mind set of being methodical and slow with the implementation of our plans, some taking centuries to see to completion. I'm playing a Tremere, basically a vampire mage that focus on Thaumaturgy, a sort of blood magic, Dominate similar to compulsion in the vampire diaries, and Auspex which is super human senses. Another player, the friend of the DM is playing a Ventrue, Sort of the Regal vampires that focus on wealth and being King. My two other friends Play a True Brujah vampires that can manipulate time, and a Malkavian, ones that see order in the madness and are all mad themselves. As the centuries pass we allow ourselves to fade into obscurity directing the masses from the shadows by binding mortal kings to our will or supplanting them entirely. We see the passage of Jesus and many other prominent figures and face many threats, killing those that are to dangerous to tolerate. Come the 1400's and we have a rather large plot of land carved out for us. We've since diablerized many Vampires, which is basically committing vampire cannibalism in which you drink their soul, getting stronger in the process. Since his creation my character has learned to create illusions, manipulate emotions, and control darkness, use celerity which is super speed, control time to a degree and fortitude which is durability all while honing his magical arts. Fast forward to the 21st century. We are all Massively powerful 4th generation vampires with missive amounts of respect and control in the Unites States where we reside in New Orleans. the amount of power any one of us can use can halt armies and together we could stand toe to toe with a Legendary Werewolf pack. However with one of our friends moving away for work we finally decide to end it all by Turing the game into an End times game. (every setting in World of Darkness has an end of times apocalypse. The Vampire apocalypse is Caine, the first vampire, and the first murderer along with his childer, the 2nd generation, and their childer the 3rd generation, all rise to end the world.) The end times begin Demons rise, the Werewolves go to war to go down fighting, the mages seek to hide, and our world comes crashing down. We try to make a defense, we try to form a safe haven, but 2 clan founders arrive. 3rd generation vampires so powerful that they have powers considered to be plot devices. Its like having access to one entire branch of magic and an infinite number of spell slots to use it with. Ventrue and Brujah walk into our town and begin laying waste to everything. NPCs we've kept alive since the dark ages, ones we have grown attached to are snuffed out in an instant. My character decides to take a stand while the party and what remains of our empire retreats. I approach the street they are on and the 2 8000 year old vampires turn, amused to see someone so young stand against them as they were 6000 years my senior. I begin laying into them with magic. Having mastered enough Time manipulation I was able to take several turns at a severe cost of blood to fuel it but nothing seemed to phase them Fire, lightning, gunfire, boiling their blood it all seemed to just piss them off. Then came their retaliation, hard physical damage that sent me through a building that left me battered and near dead. But I wasn't done. They approached asking "Is that all you have for us?" I smiled. "Not even close." I An obscene amount of blood to activate a power that let me move as a blur and bumped my dexterity well beyond my usual limit just in case I needed it while using some magic to calm and focus myself. "Just die." I told them as I activated a path of magic known as the Path of Conjuring. It was a simple path that let you create simple to complex objects with knowledge, and I had much knowledge to draw from. I looked to the DM and said "I create a star right above them." The entire table was dumbfounded and he asked me to clarify and I responded "I create a star as hot as the sun that's about 1.5 meters wide as that's the limit on the size via the power, however there is no specified limit on the mass so I make it around 50 kg per cubic inch. It wont have the gravity to hold itself together so I'll explode. Some quick math later and we found that something like 11 million lbs. of matter at almost 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit or 5000 Celsius just appeared over the street. I didn't wait, I just teleported away using some of what little blood I had left. The explosion that followed turned most of Louisiana, part of Mississippi and some of the gulf into a molten creator and the resulting shockwave through the earth that were felt the world over. Had it not been clan founders I'd have never taken such measures, but we'd heard rumors for weeks that they had awoken and the entire world was going to shit. Jesus had risen, the wolves were at war, the mages were trying to jump ship into a new reality with some massive spell, and Caine had been seen on more than one occasion. Drastic measures needed to be taken. We never seen them again.

also involving darkness but instead it was a missstep by the DM. I'm playing a GOW warlock in a short lvl 3 campaign, my character had been experimented on by alien beings which gave him magic powers and a squid like familiar (imp reflavor) but no memory of how he got them. the campaign began party waking up with no idea where they were (something my character was all too familiar with) it turned out to be a dungeon of a cult and we were working our way out of it. a cast of suggestion on the 1st cultist we found lead us to their leader, a strigoi (vampire) when we walked in the leader cast darkness at the doorway to prevent us from seeing him, but made 1 mistake, he cast it on my warlock, who's familiar can see through the magic darkness. I had specifically chosen not to use the devilsight darkness combo when creating the character, but the cards fell into place too perfectly not to use them. my 1st turn I used my action to see through my familiar so my character would even know where to go, sidestepping the doorway to let the rest of the party though. then on my 2nd turn I began firing off eldritch blasts with advantage because the enemies couldn't see though the darkness either. the rest of the party moved in and focused on the leader, while I blasted away at him and the ghost monster he had summoned. meanwhile the rest of the cult members at the door didn't know where to move in the darkness, leaving them unable to fight. the session ended with us defeating the leader while the ghost fled through the walls. the death of the leader also dropped the darkness so we'll have to deal with the other cultists, but both I and the bard are disguised as them, so we may be able to talk our way out next time

I cast the Darkness spell on my bat familiar after looking at the way the spell was written. It blocks all creatures that can "see", as a bat does not use eyes to figure out what is around it... It was immune. It flew over the upper half of some Orcs that would have caused a TPK, instead as the Orcs were confused as to how the lights got turned out on them, and how the darkness kept following them so they could not see. It gave my players time to shoot them to death with bow and crossbows.

This makes me appreciate that disguise self doesn't require concentration too

The title reminded me of Puffin Forest's video about a warlock who caused issues for the party after casting darkness on a dragon.

I've read the lies of Locke Lamore and can confirm that it is a great story about rogues

You're giving me ideas as a Drow Swashbuckler Rogue...

Fantastic book recommendation! The Gentlemen Bastards series is soo good.

As long as it makes sense (fantasy logic) the rule of cool applies and rules are bent for it without second thought.

If it is the finale of the campaign, let the Rule of Cool trump Rules As Written. The finale is the victory lap and a celebration of the story your group made.

That went dark.

Druidcraft, so Pixie wasn't necessarily a pacifist but avoided fighting especially if the odds were bad. We ran into a Harengon who was quite strong who used branding irons as weapons, it was brutal, especially for Pixie. I used almost everything at my disposal from spells to wildshape, then I had a funny idea. A part of the druidcraft cantrip is to cause a painless sensory effect and I used that often in none combat if Pixie wanted to avoid NPCs. I tried my luck to use it in combat and my DM turned it down :( I was going to make him feel like his hands were asleep, if the DM allowed it, the outcome may have been more funny

In 5th edition the dagger could have darkness cast on it because he’s holding it. For the armor to be fair he is wearing it so he couldn’t, but their would be other ways and it wouldn’t really change much. For example, using it on a weapon or his spell casting focus. That is, for 5th edition at least. Edit: I forgot to mention that if he is holding his armor when he cast it then it works fine. For example, if he just grabs it while wearing it he can cast darkness.

Ok players of pathfinder one, if you want to decimate 2 CR above your level you need, 1 Rhino hide WITH the proficiency to wear it, 1 belt of thunderous charging, one boots of the mastodon, improved bullrush, and improved overrun. Rhino hide allows +2D6 dmg on a charge, the belt of the thunderous charging gives a +2 str (that's the bonus) but when you charge it allows your weapon(s) to hit as if one size larger increasing the hurt. Then the Piece day resistance, the boots of the mastodon. Not only do you get 2 ac on an overrun attack you can trample once per day a large or smaller target for 2D8+18 ON TOP OF the charge damage. So a minimum of 2D6 and 2D8+18 most mid level targets just don't wanna play after that. On a side note I figured out how to wear 7 rings at once sadly only 5 are active BUT if you love your rings and 7 aren't enough?!

Man I would love to see a trick like that animated

Cast Darkness on a weapon, hazard one might trip over, walk into the sharp end of, or get knocked off a mount by is a fun application. A Warlock player I met once threw a Darkness-emitting Javelin at an enemy squad, killing one of them with the luckiest critical ever, and chaos ensued as their party blasted the rest of the squad into smoldering goo.

He just basically pulled a TF2 Spy move "I really never was on your side"

In one case, my DM allowed my Party's Golden Dragonborn Paladin/Ranger allow him to do a divine smite with his rifle (Normally, you can only use smites with Melee Weapons) against an opponent who had stolen his pet Guardian Drake and put it in an animal fighting pit. So, I think rule of cool is fine so long as everyone at the table agrees. Which, I will note, everyone at the table was in agreement for the ranged smite because it showed the righteous fury our Paladin/Ranger was experiencing against this guy.

I HAD to watch this one because one of our bosses used Darkness against us last week.

I made a Drow Wiz. I regularly used darkness to blind the enemies and then just outlined them in faerie fire

While playing 3.5. I was playing a gnome bard and to help me from dieing within a hit or drowning in sewer waters i used summon instrument. So i would float around ina. Steel drum, or hidding in it sining under it

Since the general was asleep, the Paladin/Warlock/Bard had plenty of time to remove his armor, cast Darkness on it, and then put it all back on. No problem.

@All Things DnD I always allow bardic inspiration to be cast on the bard itself. But yes, I would have kept darkness a fixed area of effect.

Right... Gauging from the comments there seems to some confusion over the build of this character. We know that this character is a Bard/Oathbreaker Paladin/ Hexblade Warlock (mentioned at 1:58) The level composition: At 1:39, we know there is are least 3 levels of Paladin to grant the Oathbreaker 'Oath'. At 5:37, the knowledge that this character gets 2nd level spell slots after a short rest tells us that there are either 3 or 4 levels in Warlock. From 5:43 the notion of giving yourself Bardic Inspiration is the level 14 College of Lore ability.

I cast darkness! -Some guy fighting a dragon

Story starts at 1:32

...something something something coup de grace on helpless or sleeping opponents. Its a rule for a reason.

Audible recommendation: chronicles of everfall: Shadow of the Conqueror by Shad Brooks. Amazing book. Because it was the final battle and the paladin was so clever I would have given it to him as a DM.

This video made a question cross my mind that I don't think anyone in the comments has considered: is multiclassing OP? Because none of this would've been possible if the paladin hadn't multiclassed. I know it's in the rules, but is it broken?

Paladins with no moral restrictions are very powerful and effective. But if everyone had fun, you do you.

So here’s how I feel about that spell as a DM. “If the point you choose is on an object you are holding or one that isn't being worn or carried, the darkness emanates from the object and moves with it. “ So the worn or carried clause I think is in regards to another creature wearing or carrying the target object. Because it specifies you can cast it on something you’re holding but if you’re holding it, then you’re carrying it, no? So a contradiction. It was probably a small oversight when written out to make sure it didn’t make the spell automatically better than the blindness/deafen spell (what with the lack of a saving throw). In any case I’d allow it since otherwise the player can just find a small rock or twig and do it anyway. So the same result but now with a nonsensical extra step.

brilliant